People - The locals were friendly, usually willing to help out where possible and were probably the best part of the time spent on the island. We met a wide range of locals from taxi drivers, shop attendants, marine surveyors, ship yard workers and all those in between, all were great to us and happy to chat about anything and it was surprising how much they knew about our recent earthquakes in Christchurch.
Driving/Cars - The local drivers were terrifying at the best of times and usually drove like erratic beetles scattering around the footpath and most road rules or center lines seem to be more of a suggestion. Its also amazing someone who had lived on the island for what appeared to be 20+ years admitted to never have traveled to where our hotel was (which is hard to believe since the island is only 100 miles long and only contains one 'real' city which is quite small with one road to the west end of the island and one to the east end). The cars also leave MUCH to the imagination and its clear they have no such thing as a warrant of fitness as a lot of cars were what we would find destined for the scrap yard! the taxi we took several times sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders and handled like a shopping trolley 3 wheels at best.
Food - The food was good, I was disappointed by the lack of 'local' food. The most local cuisine we had was conch which is a shellfish found around the islands. Most everything else could easily be found at most other countries around the world but other than that it was good, too bad the best meal we had while there was Greek (far from Bahamian food).
Surroundings - This was probably the biggest disappointment for the whole trip, now don't get me wrong I am grateful for getting the chance to head somewhere that was always a childhood dream of mine however there are a lot of downfalls. There seems to be no pride for the island, houses are left in ruins or half completed, rubbish just gets dumped in any bush, empty plot or beach that seems to fit at the time. On many occasions we were stepping over house lots of carpet, old kitchen cabinets, soft drink bottles etc to get onto the beach which is a shame. We were giving them the benefit of the doubt since they had recent hurricanes, however we found out that the last one was some 5 years ago, I don't think it takes that long to clean up! The roads leave a lot to be desired in places and resemble something you would currently see in Christchurch. Finally the water, it was warm which is all it had going for it. We tried snorkeling at a few different locations and it was highly disappointing! we saw very little in the way of fish life even close to the reef at Paradise Cove, if you want good snorkeling head somewhere closer to home like Rarotonga (i've been there and it wins hands down).
So in conclusion, and it is such a shame to say this but I would not recommended heading to Grand Bahama and would never consider heading back again. It is such a long was for New Zealanders to head and not really worth the 23 hours of flying to get there....such a shame! it has so much potential if the place was better maintained.
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